LBCC Livestock Judging Team Winning Nationals

Who: Linn-Benton Community College Judging Team
What: Judging Team winning National Championship
Where: Louisville, KY
When: November 18th, 2009
Why: Accomplishment of LBCC on a national level.
How to get involved: Contact Judges Clay Weber's (weberc@linnbenton.edu) and Rick Klampe's (klamper@linnbenton.edu)

The LBCC Livestock Judging Team became National Champions at the North American International Livestock Exposition, November 18th in Louisville, KY. For the second time in 34 years a west coast team has won the competition, which is like "the Super Bowl of livestock events" said coach Rick Klampe. The team of six won by a two-point margin, and a total team score of 4,215 points. Followed closely by Black Hawk East CC from Illinois, and Butler CC from Kansas in second and third place. "We were surprised when we placed higher than schools from the Mid-West because they have such an advantage; they are literally surrounded by livestock." said Jordan Baumgartner, a sophomore and local of Albany, OR.

The team flew in to Louisville on Saturday and the competition began on Wednesday morning. Twelve officials were judging 26 teams from all over the United States, with more than 120 individuals being tested on their knowledge of cattle, sheep and swine. They were happy with their win, but thought that their team weakness in the consistency of their reasons would bring their total down. "We all have an ability to speak really well and score high, but sometimes our nerves get the best of us and we make simple mistakes," said Madi McGuire of Dallas, and nerves were high at such a big competition.

The Roadrunner's won the overall reasons, and placed 2nd in overall Sheep, 3rd in overall Swine, and 4th in overall Beef. To be proficient at what you do, knowing and recognizing different breeds of animals is very important. Each member of the team has grown up around livestock and animals, and Hannah DelCurto of Cove, OR said, "to be successful you need 5 solid competitors, it's not a one person activity at all. Each of us were especially consistent with our individual scores" ranging only 15 points from eachother.

The team hopes that the freshman team members will be prepared to participate in many of the upcoming events next season. They travel all over the US to compete in competitions of the same degree as the one held in Louisville this month.

Blog post- Review on New Moon

Who:New Moon actors
What:Second Twilight Movie
Where: Corvallis Oregon
When: Monday night November 23rd, 2009
Why: For the love of the books.

On Monday night, November 23rd, I saw the newly released movie named New Moon. New Moon is the second book in the Twilight series of books. There is four books total in the series.

Twilight is about the lives of a teenage girl ,named Bella, and her vampire boyfriend, Edward. The first book was about how the two met and fell in love. The new movie is about the second book, New Moon. This book is about when Edward leaves Bella because he doesn't want her to get hurt living a life full of vampires, even though him and his family, the Cullen's, don't feed on humans.

These books and movies have become hugely popular in the teenage fan base. This series has also sparked numerous vampire shows, like Tru Blood and Vampire Diaries. The newest movie had good action and the special effects were done well. The actors had improved their acting skills since the first movie. The books are more entertaining and better done than the movies, but I recommend watching them.

Press release blog

Ancient penguin DNA raises doubts about accuracy of genetic dating
New DNA evidence, found by Oregon State University Researchers, from 44,000 year old penguins challenged the accuracy of the way genetic aging was determined. The new information suggests that scientist have been "routinely underestimating the age of many specimens by 200 to 600 percent." This means that "100,000 years old may actually be 200,000 to 600,000 years old." Professional journal, Trends in Genetics stated. “We believe that traditional DNA dating techniques are fundamentally flawed, and that the rates of evolution are in fact much faster than conventional technologies have led us to believe.”

In order to find this new information scientist used a range of mitochondrial DNA found in the bones, "ranging from 250 years to about 44,000 years old." They used this information to compare it to other bones. This new evidence was made possible by the fact that, "In a temperate zone when an animal dies and falls to the ground, their DNA might degrade within a year,” scientist, Dee Denver said. “In Antarctica the same remains are well-preserved for tens of thousands of years. In the study the DNA was compared to the known ages of bones and their results were found to be a lot different than original knowledge. Another huge discovery for this study was that, "researchers also determined that different types of DNA sequences changed at different rates.

To follow up with more information regarding this story, you can contact the Dean of the College of Science department for Oregon State University, Allan Wilson Center for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, or Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, Institute of Molecular BioSciences, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand.

Fady Joudah Speech

Who: Poet Fady Joudah
What: Literature reading
Where: Oregon State University Valley Library
When: Friday, November 13th at 730 pm
Why: As part of the Visiting Writers Series for OSU

On Friday November 13th Oregon State University welcomed poet, Fady Joudah, as part of their “Visiting Writers Series.” Joudah talked about all the interesting places and things he saw while he participated in Doctors Without Borders. He has translated the work of Mahmoud Darwish in The Butterfly’s Burden and If I Were Another, and he is the winner of 2007 Yale’s Younger Poets Prize for his first book The Earth in the Attic.
The audience was lucky enough to hear readings from all of his work and get exposed to a type of writings that most of had never been exposed to.

During Fady Joudah’s speech, he spoke about his recent missions to Darfur-Sudan and Zambia, read poems from his book, and read literature from his favorite authors. His writings were very unique and written in abstract ways. Joudah read writings about his Palestine family heritage, the practices and sufferings of other countries, his favorite poem, A Conversation with Death, from the books he had translated into English, and a poem he had written for his wife. In one of Joudah’s writings about his missions, he spoke of a time where a man asked him “May I please bring along a bag of peanuts for the ride to sell for money to feed my sister bleeding in the hospital?” This got his message across of how hard the times over in Darfur are and just how much our way of life differs. The faces of the audience dropped after hearing of such hardship that was seen.

As he reads the whole audience listens intently because they don’t know what words will be following. Joudah spoke of how his focus is more centered around his family now. He told us a particular story about his daughter, “’my daughter wouldn’t hurt a spider that had nested between her bicycles handles. For two weeks, she waited until it left. If you tear down its web it will simply know that this isn’t a place to call home’ I told her. She replied ‘Isn’t that how people become refugees?’” I thought this story showed how his life had made an impact on a lot of people.

After his readings were over, Joudah took time to answer some questions. Most questions were geared towards his writing methods and style. While others were asked about the personal details behind his readings, for these he declined to comment further due to his depth of personal attachment to them. "More people should give themselves experiences like the one we got tonight." Student Jeremy Bullis of LBCC reflected.

Photo source:http://www.catranslation.org/blog/images/fady-joudah.jpg

The Commuter- Scantron

In the November 12th issue of The Commuter there was an article about the issue of charging student for the cost of scan trons, while in the past they have always been provided. It has been an new issue of teachers charging students for extra materials needed for class that are usually included in our tuition fees. " Where will this end?" That is a great question; who will regulate what schools can charge us for and what can't they? The cost of furthering your education is already sky high and most people are struggling to just make it day by day. If our money isn't going towards class materials that are needed through out the year, than what is the money going for? How can anyone plan a head for charges like these? In the article it said, " If you are going to make us buy our own scan tron sheets then I would like my financial aid to reflect the fact that I have to make additional purchases..." If the school is going to be charging for unexpected fees like this, it should be for seen in the amount of money you are given for the term. This article was a great subject to bring to the students attention; if we are aware of this maybe students will take a stand against schools over charging students for unnecessary fees.

Jamie McEldowney

Who: Jamie McEldowney
What: Rockstar promoter
When: Through out the year
Why: Promote the sales for Rockstar
Where: Willamette Valley

Every college campus is alive with extracurricular activities, and Oregon State University is no different. Amongst all the sponsored parties and bar events you can be sure to catch a glimpse of ,22 year old, Jamie McEldowney's smiling face.

Born and raised in Corvallis, being a local has aided McEldowney with his work as a Rockstar energy drink promoter. Many of the events he sponsors consist of parties and bar events, but he also enjoys promoting at extreme sporting events, businesses, and block parties. “We give free products to people hoping that they will buy it later.”

McEldowney didn't always work on promotions, he began his career with a sponsorship from Rockstar for Motocross racing. When a couple of his racing buddies who worked for the Northwest Division for Rockstar offered him a job as the Rockstar Promoter for the Oregon State campus, McEldowney jumped at the opportunity.

“Working for Rockstar has effected my life in a positive way. I've met a lot of really cool people and now have my foot in the door to a great business.” He hopes to advance within this company, and maybe one day call himself manager of the entire Northwest Division, who is in charge of promoting at all colleges in the Northwest and parts of Canada.

Not only does he promote for Rockstar at college events, McEldowney has also worked for Mod Quad, a four wheeling company located in Albany, as an associate at Tony's Smoke Shop, and even has co-ownership of a clothing line named Live to Ride. Clearly, “sit still” is not a term that McEldowney knows too well. McEldowney started Live to Ride with a few close friends, who wanted to create clothes that are custom made for people.

Currently they have a location off of 9th street, but hope to someday have a place big enough for design, production, and retail all under the same roof. "We hope to succeed where other clothing shops in town have failed by having fresh, new ideas with more choices and more flexibility to incorporate work done by local artists that will appeal to students at OSU." Jamie's business partner, Mike Barat stated.

Jamie McEldowney has built his career from the bottom up. Using his skills in networking and becoming closer to his clients, on a personal level, has helped him succeed in promoting Rockstar all over Corvallis and eventually the rest of the Northwest in the upcoming future.

Jamie's room mate, Alex Hendrixson, describes him as having "tremendous passion for all aspects of his life and of having a big heart." “I just want to be able to support my family and be happy by doing what I love to do.” says McEldowney of his future life.

What I learned in News Reporting

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Being a big shot news reporter doesn't just get handed to you; its a long process that has to be earned. I wasn't trying to become a news reporter when I first took the class News Reporting, taught by professor Rob Priewe. I needed this class for the requirements for my public relations degree. I had previously been taking writing classes and was in the state of mind of writing like that, but when I started this class I had to change the way I had been taught to write. You are learning how to appeal to a different audiences, write about things people want to know more about, bring people information they wouldn't be able to reach with out news reporting, and writing a compelling fresh story. News Reporting has been my favorite class of this term, from starting out in a place where I didn't have much interest in news reporting, but as the term has progressed I have really enjoyed putting my self out of my normal comfort level and meeting new people and going to different events. I really like the interaction with the people. I think this class is worth while to take for anyone not just people who are in the journalism majors because it is a fun class where you learn new things.